“I’m sorry. I’m not normally so forward. Especially not in the parking lot of a coffee place.”
“You were overcome,” he said. “It happens to all of us. I promise not to report you to the dean.”
“Stop!” Her laughter was getting sleepier.
“What are you reading?” he asked, trying to keep her on the phone. She named a book he’d never heard of. Something that sounded dire and difficult. “My mom used to read a lot. She didn’t really pass that love on to me,” he admitted.
“Used to? She passed away?”
“She did. A long time ago.” Jamie didn’t like to talk about it. He really didn’t like to talk about. So he kept his mouth shut and made it clear that he had nothing more to say. Olivia didn’t take the hint.
“How long ago?”
“Thirteen years.”
“Oh, my God. You were just a teenager.”
“Yeah.” He cleared his throat and tried to tell himself to be glad she hadn’t asked about his dad, because then he’d have to give the whole tragic story. Leaving out the details of his own involvement.
“Were you close to her?” she asked quietly.
“I was.” They’d all been close back then. His siblings and his mom and dad. He and his brother and sister were each distinct personalities, but they’d all been loved equally. It turned out that Jamie had been the one who didn’t deserve it. Big shock.
“I’m not close to my mom,” Olivia admitted. He heard the click of a light on her end and imagined her settling more deeply into bed. “She’s cold. Exacting. And … no fun.”
He smiled at the wry irony in her voice. “You’re not cold,” he said.
“No?”
“No. You’re lying in bed in your very short pajamas, having an inappropriate conversation with one of your students, right?”
Her laughter chased his sadness away. “You don’t know anything about my pajamas.”
“Shh.”
“And there’s nothing inappropriate about this conversation.”
“There could be,” he insisted, “if you stopped trying to correct me.”
“Jamie …” She sighed. “You’re … really amazing. You know that?”
“I love it when you whisper that in bed.” But her voice was getting quieter, so Jamie gallantly offered to let her go. He thought of his schedule tomorrow and winced. He had a full day in the office plus the bar at night, and on Fridays they were open until ten. Thank God it was only a tasting room, and not a regular bar open until the wee hours. “If you can stay up an hour later, I’ll tuck you in tomorrow, too.”
“I’d like that,” she whispered, and Jamie could practically feel her fingers drag down his neck.
“I’d like that, too.” What a strange affair this was. No sex. Plenty of pillow talk. And damned if he didn’t love it.
CHAPTER SIX
“WHY AREN’T YOU RETURNING my texts?”
Olivia couldn’t believe she’d answered the phone. She’d avoided talking to Victor all week, but getting out of the shower, she hadn’t been able to see the phone display, and now here she was with his disapproval in her ear.
“Victor, one of the reasons I divorced you was so I wouldn’t have to return your texts or phone calls or emails unless I wanted to. And I don’t.”
“Come on, O. What’s gotten into you lately?”
She wrapped her towel tighter around her. “What are you talking about?”
“You’re acting strange.”
Strange. Like dating-a-younger-man strange. For three nights in a row, Jamie had talked her to sleep. She could no longer deny, even to herself, that she was getting involved with him. Talking to a man for hours while in bed was apparently an effective tool for breaking down resistance.
“Olivia?” Victor’s voice sang with irritation.
“Yes?”
“Who was that guy?”
Well, the curiosity must have been eating him alive if he’d just blurted it out like that. Victor normally liked to weave in and out of difficult topics until she was too confused to remember her point. Olivia smiled. “What guy?”
“Damn it. If you want to play games—”
“Victor,” she interrupted. “I’m not playing any games. My life has nothing to do with you now. Everything’s final. It’s done. Utterly and completely over.”
“That’s not true. We’re still friends.”
“We most certainly are not! Where do you get this stuff?”
“O, just listen—”
“No. I have to go. We’ll talk another time. Or not. It really doesn’t matter. Goodbye.”
For the first time in months, she wasn’t the least bit stressed after a phone call with Victor. She simply, honestly, didn’t care. She had other things to worry about. Bigger things, hopefully.
Jamie had invited her to his place for brunch. Brunch, the most innocent-sounding of all the meals, but surely this brunch was just code for sex. They could just as easily go out to brunch, after all, but she was going to his place, alone, for an intimate meal.
She was terrified, yet one hundred percent ready. At least in theory.
Something had changed for her in the past few days. Dating Jamie was still dangerous and irresponsible and it would never lead anywhere. But screw it. She’d only been divorced for a year. Now was not the time for a long-term relationship. Now was the time for a sizzling-hot affair with a younger man who made her toes curl with the just the sound of his voice.
She’d been up for hours already, thinking about it. With Jamie’s job, he wasn’t exactly a morning person. He’d invited her over at noon, explaining that it would have to be brunch because breakfast was the only meal he could cook well. She’d occupied herself with running and showering and drying her hair. But now she was faced with the impossible task of picking an outfit. Standing in her closet, she stared helplessly at her clothes.
She would know what to wear if they were going out. A cute sleeveless dress, no question about it. But what if he lived in a dorm-style dump? What if he had a roommate?
Brunch sounded a little elegant, but was it possible that he considered breakfast foods to be nothing more than Toaster Strudels and Slim Jims? She imagined herself sitting at a tiny table in a dress, eating powdered donuts out of a box.
“No,” she scolded herself. He was twenty-nine, not nineteen. He had a real apartment with a real table and maybe even a stove he knew how to use. So she picked out a pretty yellow dress and laid it out on the bed, then turned to her dresser to face the more difficult task of choosing undergarments.
Boy, she was regretting that generously padded bra now. False advertising and potential daylight nudity did not mix. She looked down at the towel that lay flat against her chest, then back to the drawer full of pretty, delicate, unnecessary bras. Then Olivia sat down hard on her bed and faced a problem she’d been ignoring. A problem she’d tried hard to forget.
She wasn’t just inexperienced at irresponsible fun. She was inexperienced, period.
Victor was the only lover she’d ever had. Ever. If she slept with Jamie, he’d be her